Is Your Team Happy at Work?

As employers or managers of a team, we are constantly evaluating if they are they happy, motivated, safe and healthy.

We are overwhelmed with information and regulations that have us running around implementing processes and policies to ensure we have everything covered. It is exhausting and time-consuming. This is even more overwhelming if you are also wearing many hats; business owner; financial controller;  mentor; human resource manager and the list goes on.

However, when it comes to your team, whether you have one employee or 100’s, you cannot read their minds but you do need to be able to find out what they are thinking. There is a really simple way to find out what your employees are thinking and what they need or desire, ask them. There are a few ways you can do this;

A group survey

Surveys can be useful if you would like to understand the overall feeling with the team or seek feedback on certain issues.  They can be a few questions, or more involved.

You could choose different questions at different times of the year, or decide to stick to the same questions, a few times a year.

Ideally, your survey should not take longer than about 15 minutes to complete – so make sure you test this.

There are also plenty of really simple survey tools, that won’t cost you a penny, and also summarizes the data for you (e.g. microsoft forms and survey monkey).

Here are a few simple questions you could consider asking:

• How happy are you at work? [ Rating of 1-10 ]

• Do you have the tools and resources to do your job?

• Has someone provided feedback recently?

• Are you clear on your role and how you meet expectations?

• How would you rate our culture?

• Do you think your manager cares about you?

Make it easy for people to answer by giving them options (yes, no, sometimes) Also provide a comments box so they can expand on their rating if they want to.  Stats suggest that if your surveys are anonymous you are likely to get more honest feedback. Where there are high levels of trust in teams, it isn’t as important. However, a little warning on anonymous surveys. If you state the survey is anonymous, then make sure it IS anonymous. Otherwise, any trust you do have with your team will be effected. Most survey tools available have this option.

Always share the themes of your survey with the whole team and follow through on actions to improve things.

Small groups

We facilitate focus groups for clients all the time. Whether it be about a system, a new initiative, a change, or literally something has gone wrong and we want to make sure the team has the information they need.

When considering this option, think about the number of people at the meeting, too many and you may not be able to manage all of the feedback.

Try matching people up.   Similar roles, levels or ages works well.  Make sure that there are opportunities for people to speak openley.  A team of younger, more junior employees may find it intimidating giving feedback when their manager is present.  Using an outside facilitator is perfect for this.

Chair the meeting with an agenda and provide information about the meeting in advance so people can prepare their thoughts.

Ensure that every person has an opportunity to participate and give feedback. There will be people who feel uncomfortable speaking up, so perhaps use a different strategy to include them. Post-it note exercises can help with this – people write their thoughts or feedback on post-it notes and the notes are shared with the group without knowing who wrote them. The notes can then be grouped to identify key themes.

Always agree on a few key actions to implement before everyone leaves and don’t forget to follow through.

One-on-one meetings

There is no better way to find out if someone is happy, fulfilled, has the skills, etc than having a discussion about it one to one.

With one on one discussion, consider the following to ensure you get the most out of the meeting;

• Allow enough time – depending on what you are trying to achieve and how often you meet. No one wants to feel rushed.

• Be prepared with an agenda (what are your discussion points) and share this with the person, prior.  The enables people to prepare.  Even better ask your team member to answer a series of questions prior and to bring these with them.

• In the meeting, be ready that you may  receive constructive and potentially negative feedback to give you. Prepare yourself mentally for this.

• Be open to all feedback and do not defend yourself or close people down (Not a great leadership trait). Listen and take it on board.  You can rationalise it later and decide what you do with the information.

• Look to finish your meeting with a few action steps, whether it is for the employee (they may have said that they are not clear on their expectations, or they don’t receive enough feedback) or it is for the company as a whole. 

Never feel like you have to implement every single bit of feedback you recieve, just be willing to listen, assess it and where it makes sense to, look to take action to improve things.

Need help surveying your team?  Get in touch with us.